I’m finally starting to see more tangible results from all of the therapies we’re doing–what a relief!  Leo’s loving to do puzzles lately, the wooden ones with animal scenes, shapes, numbers or letters.  Until now, it’s been nearly impossible to just get him to sit at their play table with a toy, any toy, and suddenly, he’s there of his own volition, working one puzzle after another.  He even surprised his teacher with this new ability, which pleased me immensely since the evaluation committee made a big deal about him being unable to do even the simplest puzzle a few months back.  Me?  I think he could’ve done it then; he just wasn’t interested yet.

But anyway, the reports from every direction are the same; he’s playing appropriately with toys for increasingly long periods of time, is sitting still for stories at school and is also doing nice four-step obstacle courses at therapy.  Even better, last night, in addition to all of the vocalization he’s been doing, he said “jump” and “uh-oh” for me in the space of a couple minutes, and both in absolutely the right contexts.

Leo, poor kid, even endured a haircut yesterday–the first one we’ve attempted since May, because that last one was such a hysterical nightmare.  Anyway, he struggled and was only minimally appeased by the rare chocolate malted milkballs treat, but we did it–and with absolutely no tears or crying!  He looks like a different kid now; those curls are still there, but we did take a good inch or so off…  Should hold him for quite a while!

Oh, and speaking of sensory matters, we picked up the niftiest little massager the other day at CVS, of all places.  It’s got four little knobs that light up and vibrate.  Let’s face it; neon blue lights are pretty attractive to little kids, and Leo’s loving the thing!  Without my even showing him, he’s doing the right things with it, and has been experimenting with buzzing it all around his face and mouth–and stimulating those muscles is one of the best things for him.  Anyway, that was $9.99 well spent…

On the other hand, this weekend is all about wrapping up loose potty ends with Luka.  He’s perfectly trained at school, but has been resisting going reliably at home, and I’ve pretty much had it.  These guys are going to be four in February, after all; it’s time!  So we’ve been on the potty without fail every fifteen minutes this morning, and it’s worked so far.  Poop is the last frontier.  (Boy, that’s something I never thought I’d see myself write…)  Anyway, Daddy gets to take over on that front once he gets home; he’s been off on a BBQ-buying mission since just after 7:30 this morning, from this place.  I’m curious to see if the brisket was worth the trip… will report back on that later!

Oh, and we’re almost done with cleanup from the Great Chocolate Debacle…  All that’s left now is recovering the dining room chairs, and we’re good to go.  Luckily, we haven’t seen any more activity along those lines.

Update:

More than a few hours later, my mom and I arrived home from what was largely a fact-finding trip to Ikea to learn that not only had Luka had an accident on the living room rug, but that he’d only actually been on the potty twice in the space of about three hours.  We’d be getting the proverbial wet noodle ready for Daddy shortly, except that he finally got Luka to do the poop-thing, after Mama contributed just a bit more roughage to the effort…

I forgot to mention the really amusing bit, though.  My son, knowing full well there’d be no chocolate malted balls in the offing without a tradeoff poop, kept insisting that he had, in fact, gone in the potty.  But when I’d come in to examine his efforts, he’d slam the potty shut and block the door with both arms outstretched, advising, “You not need to see.”  And when I’d persist, he’d pull the lid up, revealing a pristine white potty, and say with a flourish, “There!  You see?!”  I kind of like the concept of invisible poop…

But anyway, he finally did it, and received three malted milk balls and a stuffed turtle for his efforts.  We’re all pretty pleased about it…

Oh, and as for the much-heralded BBQ, I sampled some of the brisket, and while it looked beautiful, it was sliced way too thick for my taste and still had a good half-to-three-quarters-of-an-inch of fat on the top.  For my money, when you’re buying brisket by the pound, that stuff needs to be removed before they slice and sell it.  Darned tasty, though, with beautiful color and a really nice bit of smoke.